Manners Makyth Man

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assessment objectives, Blue Badge Guide, Camelot, Clueless, Colin Firth, Dr Johnson, Elinor Dashwood, feretory, Harriet Smith, Jane Austen, Keats, Lady Bertram, Mary Tudor, Occam's razor, Ockham's Razor, Ode to Autumn, ossuaries, Philip of Spain, St Cross, Winchester Cathedral, Wykeham Arms

The third and possibly penultimate excerpt from Jane Austen’s musings from beneath the floor of Winchester Cathedral.

Today an insolent hussy stood on my stone and shrieked to her companion:

Wow!  Get a load of this!  We are standing on that woman whose book we had to read for GCSE.  Except that our teacher just let us watch the DVD.  We had to compare it with “Clueless”, to show evidence of certain assessment objectives, but I got mixed up and was marked down.  It was the teacher’s fault.  She shouldn’t have confused me. My mum appealed, though, and I re-wrote that bit where Mr Thingy exits the lake in a wet t-shirt.  Mum said it was really cool.  Later she came here to give thanks for my success and slipped in a couple of prayer requests to The God of Camelot and a personal one that she might meet Colin Firth, with or without his wet clothing.

All of this was expressed in spite of a metal contraption which was attached to her teeth, so that I was as showered with saliva drops and my stone wetted, as if the Bishop had sprayed me with the rosemary twigs he uses at baptisms.  It isn’t always the best spot here, near the font.

But, at least we haven’t sunk to those adult total immersions yet.

Then the young woman proceeded to light a candle for me, muttering about there being no vanilla or blueberry-scented ones available.

Before I could utter the immortal phrase: It is a truth universally.. she was off, determined to see the feretory, as she loved those furry little creatures- or were they meerkats?  Simples is not the word.

Sometimes I raise my eyes to the metal hooks on the vasty pillars whose original function was to display the nuptial banners of Mary Tudor and Philip of Spain.  Since I cannot suspend myself thereby, I resort to turning over in my grave.  Someone should remind these youngsters of the motto of their local college:  Manners Makyth Man.  (And that is a generic, inclusive term.)

I try not to mind when tourists seem more interested in where Keats precisely commenced his walk to St Cross, before composing Ode to Autumn. 

I could easily interrupt the Blue Badge Guide and inform them that he first procured nuncheon and a pint of porter at The Wykeham Arms.  However, like my creation, Elinor Dashwood, I feel like commenting on his Romantic versification:

It is not everyone who shares your passion for dead leaves!

But, maybe this is somewhat scathing, even for me.

I still feel that a sermon well delivered is as rare as hens’ teeth.  The Evangelical varieties seem livelier, though hardly calculated to earn their exponents a succession to a stall in Westminster.

Some of the homilies could do with a firm shave by the venerable Occam’s razor, since they can be as mangled as the regal bones in the choir ossuaries and as dusty as the said receptacles themselves.  They might do well to remember the less intellectually endowed Harriet Smiths of this world, who do not always decipher obscure riddles and charades.  As Fielding said, however:

Clergy are men as well as other folks.

Personally, I have been able to touch and affect a heterogeneous audience and consequently often have more than half a mind to rise and preach myself, though I heed Dr Johnson’s astute aphorisms regarding the fairer sex and sermonising:

A woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hinder legs.  It is not done well: but you are surprised to find it done at all.

I know that I can be eloquent on points in which my own conduct would have borne ill examination.  However, greater opportunity for inward reflection has led me to direct more of my sense of irony towards my own failings.  As the good doctor also said:

As I know more of mankind, I expect less and less of them and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.

However, I who have gently mocked the aspirations of others have been glad to be sheltered in the bosom of this place, as comfortably as Lady Bertram’s pug upon her chaise, but- prenez soin!  I am sometimes yet inclined to bare my needle sharp teeth and to sink them into some unsuspecting ankles- metaphorically, of course!

Bunbury, Quincunx and Quatrefoil

Tags

anaphoric reference, Cafe Moroc, Camelot, codicil, Deus quem punire.., Fusion food, Guenevere and Lancelot, Japanese oak, kelim, kofte, Kundry, Latin Verse Speaking Competition, meze, Morgan Le Fey, Parsifal, Pele Tower, Pit Bull, Pliny, quatrefoil, Quincunx, Ridebis et, Simon Bolivar, Vickers machine gun, Wagner

Sitting in the offices of Bunbury, Quincunx and Quatrefoil Solicitors

in Rochester, Dru was digging her metal-tipped heel into the Japanese

oak parquet, which was irritating Mr Bunbury Junior considerably, though

he tried to remain professionally impassive, only occasionally clearing his

throat, like a Pit Bull on a restraint lead.

With his monogrammed handkerchief – BQ&Q- he mopped at

excessive saliva, which her small time act of vandalism was

provoking...so the stirrup cups are endowed to the museum, but

I have some personal papers for you.  He handed over a brown

envelope to Gus.  Can you initial for receipt, please?  He then

reached down and lifted a few school magazines bound with a

perished rubber band from the floor.

Gus immediately recognised back numbers of St

Birinus Middle‘s annual publication, from the 60s.

They seem to cover 1955-62, Mr Bunbury explained.  Your father

apparently treasured your team photos.  He asterisked the year when

you captained the 1st XI.  He has annotated the Prize-giving List for

1961, when you took the Classics Cup for Latin Public Speaking.

I remember that, said Snod, flicking through the yellowed pages.

I had to memorise and deliver some Pliny.  Something along the

lines of Ridebis et licet..

..rideat, supplied Bunbury Junior, who had come second in his prep

school’s Latin Verse Speaking Competition with the very same passage

and had his defeat bitterly imprinted on his memory forever.  Pliny the

Elder.

You will notice a communication from Lady Wivern, your mother,

which outlines the financial arrangements she made with Miss

Snodbury over your welfare and protection, when she released you into

her care.

Mehercule! Snod ejaculated. Deus quem punire uit demerat.

What? said Dru, digging her heel into the floor even more deeply.

Whom God will destroy He first makes mad, supplied Mr Bunbury,

eager to show his linguistic prowess.

Pliny the Younger, Snod stated firmly with an anaphoric reference

which Bunbury was incapable of tracing.

Instead the solicitor cleared his throat, glared at Dru’s foot and

continued, The codicil clarifies her wishes and we have drawn up

instructions as to how you may gain access to the bank vault and its

contents. We will send you further details along with your-ahem!–

(here a further glare at Dru’s heel).. with a note of our charges.

And a bill for repairs to the floor, he wanted to add.

He burbled on in a factual manner for a few more minutes.

Snod and Drusilla retired to The Cafe Moroc– a ‘fusion of Regency

decadence and Moroccan chic’, according to its advertising blurb.

Gus had had enough decadence for one day, so they concentrated

on twelve different meze dishes (to share) and a lamb kofte.

I don’t understand, whispered Dru.  What’s been going on?

Snod was in deep shock, but it didn’t prevent him from demolishing

eight out of the twelve dishes, which Dru thought was somewhat

unfair, especially as he went for her favourites with a vengeance,

adding yet another stain to his, thankfully, polka-dotted tie.

Berenice was not his mother; Hugo de Sousa was not his half-brother;

Aunt Augusta was not his aunt, nor Dru’s great-aunt.  The other

Augusta who had run wild in the Bosphorous was not his grandmother,

nor Dru’s great-grandmother, though the sale of the inherited kelims

had paid for his music lessons and ‘extras’..

Dru could see the carrot of being Aunt Augusta’s sole legatee

vanishing as rapidly as the meze.

So, she slowly worked it out, Anthony Revelly, the toy boy tutor, had

an affair with the widowed Lady Wivern.  The Vickers machine gun accident

didn’t knock the balls off his potential coronet then.

Coronet?

Okay, I suppose it was Lord Wivern’s then.  Or was the title in her family?

I don’t know, Snod said wearily.  They clearly did not marry.  Mmm.. I

suppose Lionel and Peregrine were my half-brothers.  I may be entitled to

pre-fix ‘The Honourable’  to my name.

But the boys are both dead, aren’t they?  And they didn’t have any family?

Not as far as I know.  There’s nothing mentioned in the paperwork.  Oh,

really, it’s all too much.

You mentioned your name, Drusilla persisted.  But you may have been

given the Christian name ‘Augustus’ to help to recreate your identity.

She refused to use the PC term ‘forename’.  In that she was her father’s

daughter.

Yes, apparently Lady Wivern called me Arthur Parsifal.  Snod looked

abashed. I’ve never really liked Wagner.  Too narcissistic.

The Honourable Arthur Parsifal Revelly?  Dru choked on a chick pea.

Ah, like Kundry, you are the first to address me by the name my mother

gave me.

Kundry?

In the opera. ‘The wound, the wound, it burns within my heart’

Right.  Dru didn’t know what he was rambling on about. What was Lady

Wivern’s name?

Aurelia Tindall, according to all this bumf.  Of Coquetbrookdale.  Her ancestors

had owned a pele tower in the Borders.

Oh, I’ve always wanted to live in a pele tower, breathed Dru.  Murgatroyd, he

whose name must not be spoken, is renovating one up there, according to

mother.

Well, we won’t be inheriting a domesticated fortification either.  It was in ruins

and so it was unsaleable and couldn’t alleviate her insolvency or save Wyvern

Mote from being left to the nation.

So, Berenice dumped you after she received payment to take you on as her son?

She tried to foist you off on her mother and then her sister took charge of the

whole sorry mess.   All that in spite of having been paid a fair whack,

no doubt.

Enough to cost Aurelia Wyvern Mote; but enough to pave Berenice’s way to

decamping to the land of her hero, Simon Bolivar.

There’s a detail that you’re missing, Dru pointed out, quickly mopping up

some sauce with a torn corner of pita bread.

Only one? Gus sighed.

You are Arthur, King of Camelot.

So, in that case I must forgive Guenevere and Lancelot if life is to go on.

Guenevere?  Lancelot?

Anthony and Aurelia, I suppose, Snod nodded.  Oh, you’ve finished all the

chick peas.

Yes, I have you greedy old.. She checked any outward expression of her

inner turmoil. And Aunt Augusta?  Shall we still take her out?  she asked

instead.

Morgan le Fey!  But at least she didn’t plot against me, so we shouldn’t

punish her, though she’s no water sprite, that’s for sure. No, let the healing

begin!

And he tossed her the envelope and its contents.  Some of this applies to

you.

 

 

Sleeping Dogs

Tags

Big Ben, Bishop's Move, Camelot, How To Handle a Woman, I Loved You Once in Silence, If ever I would leave you, Lancelot, non-PC, Royal School of Church Music, sleeping dogs, The Lusty Month of May, Timex, Today programme

Diana, Dru and Gus sat in that hostelry which was run by a dyslexic

landlord, namely, The Running Sore and digested their two course

meal.

It had been a special midweek offer: a discount if orders were taken

before seven pm.

They had slid into a corner table two minutes before the deadline, only

to be told that it was two minutes past.

Gus summoned mein host, who couldn’t tell the time anyway, but he was

soon persuaded that Mr Snodbury’s watch was regulated every morning by

Big Ben‘s chimes before the Today programme and that the school bell was

synchronised by this ancient timepiece- Snod’s Timex, that is.

Okay, okay, you can have the special offer, he conceded.  There was no

point in arguing with a bunch of teachers, or they who must be obeyed.

They were too used to getting their own way.

He clawed back the reduction by substituting a cheaper bottle of house

red and they didn’t notice.

Well, we’ve missed the funeral, sadly, Gus said.

Yes, but we can go down next week and make an appointment to see

the solicitors.  Also, Aunt Augusta wants to be taken out again, remarked

Dru, somewhat ruefully.

I suppose so.  She never even commented on me going to see him with

Berenice when I was little, Gus said a little bitterly.

She’s old now.  It was a long time ago and she’s forgotten, soothed Diana.

Better let sleeping dogs lie, she advised.

Mum, can you manage your removal on your own?  Have you got storage

arranged?

I’ve got Bishop’s Move- that removals firm that sounds like a chess

strategy. They do everything for you.  I’m going to put everything into a

secure barn near Suttonford. Don’t worry.  You go with your father.

The Royal School of Church Music, hmmm.  He was musical then.  I must

have taken after him.  Snod looked down.  He looked pensive, but he

had just noticed a soup stain on his tie.

He should have heard you take the lead role in Camelot, said Diana.  ‘If

Ever I should Leave you’-such a moving song.  He would have been so

proud of you.

‘Would’.  ‘Would leave you’. That was Lancelot’s song, Snod corrected her.

Yes, but you would have sung it even better.

He let it go.

It’s a blessing that Berenice is gone in a way, Dru observed.  What she didn’t

know didn’t hurt her.  I don’t suppose he remembered her in his will.

I loved you once in silence, said Diana.  That was anther good one.

And Snod looked down again.  But this time it was a tear that had stained

his tie.

The Lusty Month of May.. Diana began, but Dru signalled to her to shut

up. It was too much information and at completely the wrong time. How to

Handle a Woman didn’t even come into it.  Those were non-PC times and

Snod was still living in them.  He was one of the Old School.

Fifth Rehearsal

Tags

bratwurst, Britten, Camelot, Ceremony of Carols, faggots, gerund, Nunc Dimittis, Old Hundredth, Paradis XO, St Nicolas

Tension was running high.  There weren’t many weeks left until the St

Nicolas Concert and the Music Department of one-plus-a-few peripatetics

was becoming visibly anxious, willing the older boys’ voices to resist

breaking.

Augustus Snodbury, Senior Master at St Birinus Middle School

was almost falling asleep in the foetid heat of the rehearsal room.

Almost, but not quite.  He was there in his capacity of judge and jury,

for he had once sung the lead role in a very good amateur performance

of Camelot, but he refused to lower himself to participate in a school

production.  He regarded himself as a semi-pro.

He was incredibly proud of his daughter, Drusilla, who had been persuaded

to play her harp in the second half of the evening, when Britten’s Ceremony

of  Carols was to have its run through.  He had also passed on a few useful

tips on breathing to Nigel Milford-Haven, tenor and eponomyous Saint,

whose day job made him a little lower than the angels, as far as his

mentor was concerned.

He had been secretly impressed by Nigel’s practical assistance in

manoeuvering Drusilla’s weighty instrument into the hall.  She had been

surprised at such strength being demonstrated from what some would

term a weedy guy -the type who has sand kicked in his face.  Usually she

preferred a bass, but chivalry seemed to be a tenor characteristic, if not a

long-term sustainability feature.

The basses just wondered why he didn’t ask the school caretaker to

assist. They felt they had brains as well as brawn.  But they couldn’t know

how love gave Nigel the power to shift mountains.

Drusilla, being a House Mistress at St Vitus’ School for the Academically-

Gifted Girl, was playing a dual role.  She was accompanying, in both

senses of the word, some of the members of the girl’s choir, who had been

jolly rousing in the movement where they had been drafted in to brew a

storm in the Journey to Palestine section.  They had to sing, standing in

the upper gallery of the hall, on a pierced wrought iron platform, as if they

were on a boat, but Drusilla had stipulated that they should wear non-

uniform trousers for the evening.  In spite of this modest attire, they still

raised a typhoon of raging emotion in the ranks of the older, pre and mid-

pubescent male voices and nearly made a shipwreck of the session.

Gus’ head was just about to lag and his breathing was threatening to

splutter, when his attention became riveted by the words of the Nunc

Dimittis, which Mr Geoffrey Poskett, Choirmaster, was conducting so

feelingly.

How very apposite! thought Gus. Those words!  The boys must sing this

at my retirement, in the very near future.  I have been a shepherd; I have

been kind  and courageous: a ‘spendthrift in devotion’.  I have guided boys

through all  kinds of perils, on land and sea…Is that a different hymn?  I

have defended  them from the injustices of cruel men.  I mean, some of

my past colleagues who were quite unreasonable.  Like St Nicolas….Ah! 

Didn’t I overhear Pollux  Willoughby of Transitus A say that I was a legend

in my lunch hour?  Or was it in his lunch hour?

(Maybe it was a deliberate ploy to gain an exemption from litter-picking?)

He could foresee a –what was the collective term for a group of grateful

parents?– ‘pension fund of parents‘ pouring from a brass, no, a golden

vessel, a libation of something very expensive in the alcohol line, say,

Paradis XO, over his head- minus his Panama, naturally.  In that eventuality,

they should keep that nectar in the bottle and should anoint him with

something less valuable.  A laurel wreath would do.

He became lost in this soft focus reverie. Then he had to rush back to mark

some wretched scripts.  He left Nigel to assist with the harp, but noticed

Geoffrey Poskett getting in on the act, much to the tenor’s annoyance.

So, it was disappointing that, the very next day, Snod should have to be

confronting the troublesome John Boothroyd-Smythe, whose family was

experiencing difficulties, as everyone knew.  Still, there was no excuse.  The

bratwurst had behaved reasonably well in the rehearsal the previous

evening, but had disgraced himself in the refectory at lunch, by

commenting audibly, as he expectorated a lump of gristle, that the school

faggots– those culinary delicacies which the dinner ladies had been serving

up for aeons- were probably equine, or the products of the same butcher

that Nicolas, Singing Bishop of Myra/ Lyra?, had condemned for

sausagifying – was that a gerund?- the three pickled boys, Timothy, Mark

and John.

Gus refrained from issuing him with the ultimate punishment: suspension

from school, not physically, though there was a very useful flagpole should

the need arise, but he did require the irritating one to write out The Old

Hundredth in musical notation three times, for the following Friday.

The Senior Master was particularly annoyed as he had been on lunchtime

yard duty and there hadn’t been any faggots left by the time he got to sit

down and invite indigestion.  Only the vegetarian options had remained,

sadly. He was so hungry that he almost felt like eating a boy himself, saintly

prohibition, or not!

First Rehearsal

Tags

Bishop of Lyra, Bourbon biscuit, bratwurst, Britten, Camelot, Ceremony of Carols, Elijah, Elisha, Frankfurter, Nunc Dimittis, Old Hundredth, Peter-Pears, Richard Burton, Richard Harris, St Nicolas

Mr Geoffrey Poskett, Choirmaster of St Birinus Middle School, was over-

excited as usual.  It was almost the end of September and he had given a

great deal of consideration- mainly in the wee sma’ hours-to the

programme for his showcase Christmas term concert.

Greetings, chaps and chapesses! he enthused. (Several singers groaned.)

Welcome to the parents and staff who are supporting the boys in the end of

term concert.  I am delighted to announce that we will be performing Britten’s

Ceremony of Carols and St Nicolas. If ever there was an accessible

programme, then this is it.  Now I know that you will be wondering who the

soloists are going to be and I can announce that the youngest boy in the

choir will be the youthful Nicolas, as is traditional..

Here some parents looked as if they were about to vote with their feet, as

they had assumed that their mini Peter-Pears-in-the-Making was going to

land the eponymous role.

In fact, John Boothroyd-Smythe might have been a good choice as he

had nerves of steel, but his voice was about to break.

Geoffrey couldn’t imagine the latter springing from his mother’s womb, singing

‘God be glorified!‘  He had tried to keep the delinquent on board, but when he

had offered him the part of the final member of the trio of pickled boys,

Timothy, Mark and John, the ingrate scornfully replied, Who wants to be a

singing sausage?

The answer to that was none of the boys, particularly, but all of their parents

were gagging for them to be chosen and were ready to literally sacrifice their

darlings, whether they were to be actually preserved in brine or not, for the

sake of a favourable mention in a review in the school magazine.

John’s rudeness had earned him a detention with Mr Snodbury.  When he saw

the on-duty master reach into his briefcase for a quick snifter from what looked

suspiciously like a hip flask, John felt that the old boy would have been first

rate as a pickled adult.

John’s interpretation of the boys as Frankfurters, or chipolatas, en vinaigrette,

was somewhat literal.

Geoffrey had bitten back a comment to the effect that the role of

metamorphosed, or resurrected bratwurst would be highly appropriate for

such a pupil as himself.

Some of the semi-professional male instrumentalist members of staff who had

turned up to lead the Junior String Orchestra had been hoping for an elevation

from the ranks and  longed for a recognition of their solo tenor voices.  In

short, they wondered if one of their cohort might land the part of the adult

Nicolas.

And so it came as a surprise when Poskett announced that Mr Nigel

Milford-Haven was going to sing the role of the saint, in view of his

enhanced experience which had been finely tuned– ahem!( he was aware

of his own pun) at the Bath Monteverdi workshop over the summer.

Nepotism! muttered one of the viola players, but that was to be expected

from a musician in their section.

Over tea in the staffroom the following day, Nigel raised the subject very

casually with Mr Snodbury as he stood in line to choose a biscuit from the

hostess trolley. He mentioned that he had been elected to sing the part of

the Bishop of Lycra.

Snod looked at him as if he was a first former and corrected him: Lyra, sir! 

Lyra! He then snaffled the last Bourbon biscuit, which Nigel had been eyeing

throughout the conversation. Still, he couldn’t have everything, he supposed.

Lyra, yes, of course, that’s what I meant to say, he stuttered.  Yes, it’s a

marvellous piece and the eighth movement is so homophobic.

Snod put half of the biscuit in his mouth and sprayed Nigel with a cascade of

dark brown crumbs:  Homophonic, you ass! 

He was clearly not having a good day.

Nigel considered reporting the Senior Master to the union representative

and fantasised about receiving enormous damages for his loss of self-esteem

and injured feelings, but to complain might mean that his stellar role would

be endangered and it was too important to risk that.

I heard the parental chorus sang the Old Hundredth fairly competently, Snod

remarked, as if nothing untoward had been voiced.

Yes, sir!  He was relieved that he was on surer footing now and sat down

beside Snod in an ingratiating manner which irritated the eminence grise.

The boys enjoyed the part where Nicolas is enjoying his bath, he volunteered.

Snod had heard that there had been one or two sniggers at this point.

We rehearsed the section where the bewildered mothers were looking for

their lost sons.  They assumed that the ‘wurst’ had happened.

Nigel congratulated himself on a very good joke, but Snod ignored it.

There’s a plethora of that type of female in the school yard, I always find.

Snod drained his tea in one-a practice he had perfected over many a break.

I don’t suppose Poskett was other than spoilt for choice. I hear he gave

the parts to the pushiest ones as usual.

I don’t know about that, Nigel practised being pontifically diplomatic, if that

wasn’t an oxymoron- ie/ he tried to sit firmly on the fence on any thorny

matter.

I expect that you can relate to the sixth movement, as can we all, mused

Snod.

How so, sir?

Isn’t it a description of the barren years of incarceration? Snod said wryly.

Still, everyone gets their Nunc Dimittis in the end.

He was hoping for his very soon.  Pension! God be glorified!  But you will have

to wait much longer for yours, won’t you, under the new government

regulations?  Never mind- God moves in a mysterious way.  Maybe you will win

the lottery, if you say your prayers.  You should buy a ticket in our

consortium. A tenner a month, that’s all.

Is that Camelot? asked Nigel who was somewhat otherworldly regarding such

vices and, in that respect, made more of a a convincing saint than any other

member of staff.

Camelot? repeated Geoffrey, who had only three minutes of break left, having

collected his large bundle of hate mail from his pigeon hole, all protesting about

his casting skills. Oh, there’s no Bourbons left!  He looked devastated.

Camelot! Now there’s a good summer musical for you, suggested Snodbury,

rising from his club chair. I once sang the role of King Arthur many moons ago,

but I leave you my musical mantle, Milford-Haven.  Even Elijah had to divest

himself of his garment so that the young Elisha could grow into his sandals.

Gentlemen, adieu!

And though there was no rushing wind or cloud of unknowing, he cast a

cursory glance at his empty pigeon hole and left humming:

Don’t let it be forgot

That once there was a spot

For one brief, shining moment

That was known as Camelot..

And Geoffrey and Nigel had to admit that there was a deal of musicality left

in the old dog yet!  In fact, there was even a look of the young Richard Burton

in his profile- or was it Richard Harris?  Both were before their time.